Gandel cites a recent McKinsey Global Institute study on global debt that found total U.S. borrowings as a percentage of gross domestic product are lower than most other industrialized countries. The debt figures include not only government debt, but corporate, bank and household borrowings as well. Gandel writes:

Overall, the U.S. and its citizens owe a little over $41 trillion. That, of course, is a lot of money. But when compared to the U.S. GDP, it’s not a shockingly bad number. In fact, it’s pretty good, when compared to other nations. The U.S.’s debt is equal to 275% of our GDP. That percentage for the United Kingdom is over 450%. Japan’s overall debt-to-GDP is about the same as the U.K. Spain comes in at nearly 350%, and France’s debt is above 300%.

What’s more, we may be the only country where those debt levels are actually falling. The reason, not surprisingly, has nothing to do with the government, it has to do with you and me. While government borrowing continues to rise, household debt is falling. In the wake of the financial crisis, many consumers cut back on their own spending, and homeowners who lost their homes to foreclosure have also lost the debt that went with those homes. Of course, many of those homes caught in the mortgage meltdown have contributed to a shift of those debts from the private sector to the government.

The real downside, though, is that the very consumer habits that are lowering our country’s overall debt may also be impeding the economic recovery.